In an increasingly violent society, homes, businesses, government and civic establishments are often targets of such threats as armed attacks, burglary, kidnapping and vandalism. Such threats not only involve damage and destruction of personal or commercial property, but also potential bodily harm to families, employees and the public. Due to such threats, business and home owners have installed security doors to resist or prevent entry. Conventional bullet resistant security doors typically are solid structures or solid with a single small multi-layer glass pane offering limited visual or aesthetic properties. Exterior security doors fabricated from wood, wood laminate or metal seldom have multiple glass vision panels due to problems maintaining structural integrity and with condensation and/or fogging due to temperature variations. Conventional construction of a door with a plurality of glass panes (TDL, true divided light), lack the structural integrity to withstand damage resulting from high velocity projectiles directed toward the glass or the surrounding rail and stile door panels. Likewise typical security doors with the view panels require a direct and permanent connection between the interior and exterior steel reinforced glazing stops which leads to issues of condensation and fogging. When view, light and security are desired or required, bullet resistant security doors must consist of an assembly of components that address all of these typical deficiencies.
Conventional security doors used in office buildings, banks and other commercial or civic installations are typically comprised of a metal skin typically of roll formed steel laid over a dense wood or synthetic rigid core. Moreover, if the doors or windows contain a bullet resistant glass, the glass is typically of limited size and riveted between steel straps, crossed bars or perforated panels. There are typically no provisions to maintain minimum insulating properties while still providing security, visual, and sound reduction properties. Due to a lack of a physical break between outdoor and indoor thermal conducting materials, these doors and windows tend to sweat (condensate) when used to separate areas with large temperature differentials as with an exterior door.
Security doors have been used for a number of years. Typically, these doors have solid steel panels or jail door-like appearance wherein heavy steel bars stretching vertically and horizontally in front or within the door core to protect the doorway from forcible entry. While attempts have been made to improve the appearance of these doors, none have offered design flexibility flexible size, shape and finish; large vision panels, low thermal conductivity; and aesthetic compatibility all within a bullet resistant security door product.
The present invention addresses the aesthetic, thermal conductivity and security properties of exterior/interior doors. The component selections, fabrication, and assembly procedure of the present invention accomplishes this through variable levels of security performance, multiple transparent visual panels, scalable door width/height dimensions, variations in the shape, size, and configuration of the glass divides, aesthetic appearance with various exterior/interior finish options to compliment installation design directives, and a thermal separation between exterior and interior environments.